


The colour of sunlight

by second_writer



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, The Flash (Comics), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 23:50:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14224518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/second_writer/pseuds/second_writer
Summary: Barry is watching the sun. Looking into it with wide open eyes, searching. He isn’t exactly sure what he is searching for, or what he expects to find, but he can’t bring himself to look away.Hal had restarted the sun. That’s what they had said, at the end of their story. His best friend had been lost, had turned evil, had destroyed Oa, had killed millions of people. And then he’d reignited the sun.And died.





	The colour of sunlight

Barry is watching the sun. Looking into it with wide open eyes, searching. He isn’t exactly sure what he is searching for, or what he expects to find, but he can’t bring himself to look away.

Hal had restarted the sun. That’s what they had said, at the end of their story. His best friend had been lost, had turned evil, had destroyed Oa, had killed millions of people. And then he’d reignited the sun. 

And died. 

Barry continues to look into the brightly burning boll of light, hands pressed lightly against the window of one of the watchtowers observation rooms. He’s waiting, he thinks, waiting for something green to appear. To rush out. He isn’t sure why he’s waiting. It’d been over seven months since Hal had saved the world by lighting the sun up again, from what the others had said. It’d been two years since he’d last heard Hals voice. Desperate. Telling him to _SLOW DOWN, Barry, please!_ He’d never heard Hal beg before. He wouldn’t again. 

It takes a normal human about 100 to 400 milliseconds to blink. Barry can blink within nanoseconds. He doesn’t. He’s afraid he’ll miss it, that he’ll be looking away that one exact moment that Hal might appear. It isn’t logical, it’s stupid. But then again, it isn’t logical to become stuck in literal speed for two years. It isn’t logical to come back and find out you’ve been considered dead all along. It isn’t logical that Hal would fall apart, would lose to fear, would destroy cities, planets. And it isn’t logical to come back only to find Hal isn’t here anymore. In fact, that’s the most stupid out of it all. He can’t be gone. Barry can’t come back just to find Hal gone. He can’t. But Hal hasn’t shown himself at all. 

It’s okay. Barry can wait. He’s used to waiting. He’s a speedster, everyone else is just a bit slower than he is. There is absolutely nothing green to be found in the sun, though. He should be looking for yellow, probably. Hadn’t Hal said that, once, during his complaints about the guardians, and the corps? That fear was yellow, and that there was a yellow impurity held captured by them. Had Hal become a yellow lantern? Barry hadn’t asked. Nothing had really sunken in after he’d realised where the story was going. After he’d understood why it had become quiet as soon as he asked after Hal. Why there’d been pity in the faces of Diana, and Clark. Why Oliver wasn’t there. And then Bruce had taken his cowl of, and looked him in the eye. And Barry had known, known what he couldn’t accept yet. He’d just sat there. Sat there as they told him. Sat there until it ended with Hal in the middle of a burning, scorching sun. Then he’d bolted. 

The sun is scorching even know. It’s burning into his eyes. He still hasn’t blinked. He still hasn’t moved. He still doesn’t believe it. It still doesn’t feel real. Maybe he isn’t looking for Hal to come flying out. Maybe he is looking for Hals body. Maybe he’s looking to make it real. It doesn’t feel real, it doesn’t make sense. He can’t make sense of anything anymore. 

One moment they’re fighting side by side. The next Barry is stuck in a seemingly endless stream of time, speed. And then he’s back and Hal is gone. He’d always known, in a corner of his mind he tried hard to ignore, that Hal would probably go before him. That one day he’d see Hal die. He just had never considered that he himself wouldn’t be there. That he would find out only months later when all traces of the incident were gone. When life had already continued, as if nothing ever happened. He needs to see it. He needs to look into the middle of the sun, run into it, bury himself in that boiling heat and find Hal. He needs to see for himself that Hal is really there. Even if only ashes remain. Even if he finds no more than a sliver of green clothing. Or of a brown jacket.

He can’t do that though. He can’t run through space, he can’t put Wally, and the team, through seeing him die again. He can’t go running into the sun, but he sure can look at it. Even if by now small spots are dancing across his eyes and his head hurts. Burns. His throat burns too. 

Barry had missed the sun. When he was running, running, ever running through that strange tunnel of light that was the speedforce, he’d had plenty of time to think about the things he missed. He’d missed Iris, of course. He’d missed Wally. He’d missed the team and he’d missed eating taco’s. He’d missed the long hours spend in his lab. He’d missed the feeling of the rain on his skin. He’d missed the sound of people talking. He’d missed late nights, spread out on the couch with files. He’d missed the feeling of air in his lungs and sun on his face. The soft light of early mornings, brushing with warm streaks across his skin. The bright light of summer, touching the trees. The glow of orange as the sun set into the ocean. 

He’d be tearing the sun to shreds if it’d bring Hal back. It won’t. 

The dark spots have grown and Barry realises, vaguely, that the light is dimming. But that’s not possible. He’s up in space, the sun doesn’t set here. He feels a slight panic start to crawl up. He can’t focus on the sun anymore. He can’t see it right anymore. It’s starting to fade out of view, to disappear. But it can’t. It isn’t allowed to. Hal… Hal is in there, Hal gave his life for the sun, he can’t lose that light now. Barry can’t look away now. He wasn’t there when Hal needed him. _He wasn’t there when Hal needed him... _But he can be there now, he should be there now, should have been there. He’ll make up for it, he’ll keep looking, keep looking. But his sight is growing more and more black and he realises slowly that he’s blinded himself, blinding himself. His healing can’t keep up with the damage done.__

__The spots melt together and then it’s all black around him. No, no! He needs to be watching, needs to keep looking. He’s going to miss it. He’s going to miss Hal coming out of that sun. He’s going to miss that green glow, those brown eyes as they tell him it was all just a joke. Just a trick they played because Barry should have listened to Hal when he told him to slow down. And now Hal is mad but he’s also glad he’s back and ..._ _

__And it stays dark_ _

__black_ _

__black as if the sun did die_ _

__and Barry is all alone in this godforsaken Watch tower with burned eyes and shaking hands and he’s crying for the first time since he got back. He won’t stop._ _

__He can’t._ _


End file.
